Concurrently, I have committed to raising funds for ASHA that will take care of the education of 16 children for a year (16*$150=$2400) in Pune (see Project Ankur for details). I consider this different from charity, read on for why. You can help me in fundraising by donating by credit card, cash or cheque (contact me at prasadsn at gmail dot com). If your company matches your donation, please contact me at prasadsn at gmail dot com after donating.
You have seen it all---pictures of malnourished kids that ought to shame us; of battered people, including women and children, that ought to evoke a visceral disgust at the level of cruelty humanity is capable of; combined with the stories of charities and people that alleviate them with a message that you, as a fortunate person in comparison, must try to help the less fortunate.
You may know about ASHA---an organization that educates children in India and where every cent of what you donate is put to real work with zero overheads. Maybe you even know some people who work for ASHA. Maybe you are surprised to find out the amount of volunteer effort some people put into ASHA, all the while downplaying it.
But a charity? I don't think ASHA is one. Let me digress a little bit and narrate something that happened a few years back when Madras was deciding to become Chennai.
In my year, the teaching section encountered something that will stay with me all my life. A few pre-schoolers from were being taught basic math---rote learning of multiplication tables, very basic addition (2+3, 3+4), etc. They were given some drill work where they had to add several numbers so that the ``teachers'' could catch up on their work (reading Asterix). To make life easier for everyone, the numbers to be added had lot of repetitions.
True to form, kids were using fingers to add and sneaking in conversations in between. Cute as only 4 year olds can be. All but one that is---this little guy had finished before others could do a even a couple of the problems assigned. And he explains: he had noticed that the multiplication tables he had been taught to memorize a few days back was repeated addition, so he looked them up instead of adding.
This kid's parents were illiterate, he had no siblings, it wasn't as if someone taught him about the multiplication tables. He had figured this out---clearly he was a natural at math, maybe even gifted. It remains a source of shame that I do not know what happened to this child. I can only make sure that other stories do not end in frustration and tragedy.
This has been a big eye opener for me. I kept thinking of the teaching program as helping kids. But no, we were going treasure hunting. For all we know, the kids we educate will do far more for us than we can do for them---we were just letting them help us!
Therefore, in my mind, the one common characteristic of all successful societies is the extent we will go to nurture that one person. When we make sure kids receive an environment conducive to their development, we are making sure we do not lose out.
Charities will tell you---put kids in school, they will then not become a burden to society. I believe there is far more at stake: if in all this, one, just one Einstein or Ramanujan comes out, you have done more---even if we ignore for a second your own professional and personal contributions---than your share in securing humanity's future.
Humanity, by its very success, is perpetually condemned to be at the threshold of untold prosperity as well as possible doom. At every step, the difference between the two possibilities is just how well we use human resources.
To me this is where ASHA comes in---apart from the basic decency involved in lifting up someone whom misfortune has struck down, it is a necessity, an investment, and as its name implies, a hope and desire that we move into prosperity instead of doom.
Asha for Education is a secular organization dedicated to change in India by focusing on basic education in the belief that education is a critical requisite for socio-economic change. Till date, Asha has supported more than 385 different child education projects spanning 24 states in India. In terms of project funding, almost $4,000,000 has been disbursed to these projects since Asha's inception. In 2002 alone, Asha chapters raised and disbursed more than $1,000,000 to over 200 projects. To learn more about Asha For Education and the projects it undertakes, please visit: http://www.ashanet.org
To learn more about TeamAsha and its marathon program, please visit: http://sv.teamasha.org